Rating: 
Summary: Blue Sword and Hero & Crown are some of my fave books
Review: The Hero and the Crown and THe Blue Sword are two of my favorite books. I would have to say that I prefer the Blue Sword but I read the Hero and the Crown first and I think both are great. I read the H&C last year and I seem to understand it better now. It starts out in the present, then flashes back, and then gets you caught up. I had trouble with this book the first time I read it but I read it in one day. Some might think that these two books are slow but I liked them just fine. Most of the book takes place in Damar which is the part I enjoyed. This book is about adventure, love, feeling outcast, and you can't forget the animals. McKinley gives the animals many characteristics while still allowing the animal feel. Aerin feels outcast because of part of her heritage and feels weighed down by her responsibilty in her father's kingdom. I loved her character up until she falls in love with Luthe. I know many will disagree with me but it just irritates me. I like Luthe but I wish he would just teach her and continue being a mage. I loved Tor from the beginning of the book and I am glad that she went back to him. Another thing that irritates me is the whole mage thing and how she isn't quite mortal anymore. But now I see that I am making the book sound bad and I must insist that this is one of the BEST BOOKS EVER! In this book Aerin battles dragons, deals with an annoying cousin (Galana), and is just all around one of my favorite heorines. Please read this! (Even if Luthe irritates you)
Rating:
Summary: Wow I love Robin McKinley!!
Review: Ok, did anyone else completely fall in love with Luthe? McKinley's characters are amazing; they're so,so,so real. this is one of my alltime favorite commfort books; serioulsly, if I've had a bad day, I pick up this book! I've lost count of how many times I've read it. Seriously read this book.
Rating:
Summary: stunning plot and characters
Review: I first had this book read to me when I was in fifth grade, and it was incredibly confusing. I picked it up again in high school and understood why. McKinley uses time like Faulker - it becomes one of the very elements she writes with, like structure or diction. Chronology is fluid, and it works amazingly well throughout the story. The interplay of memory and action, past and present and future is amazing. The character development is also stunning. Aerin, the main character, is strong, with significant depth. Through her interactions with the others, we can see not only how she relates to them, but who they are - and they are not just the stock personalities we tend to find in a "fairy tale." All in all, incredible writing, one of my favorite books, and something well worth a read. Not your typical fantasy book - something much more, something ambitious that sparks your literary palate.
Rating: 
Summary: This really is a YA novel
Review: I'm middle-aged but I read a lot of fantasy. _The Hero and the Crown_ and _The Blue Sword_, which I read one after the other, really are too "young" for me. Partly it's the theme of "outcast discovers she has strange powers that make her even more different from other people than she thought--but better." The theme of discovering one's identity and abilities is actually also appropriate to later stages of life (at least for some people, including me), but in these books it's a bit too uncomplicated to appeal to adults. Partly it's the extreme wholesomeness of the romances--it really is OK to give this book to your kid. And partly it's all the cute horses and dogs and cats, and all the cute foals and pupppies and kittens they have at the end when the story is wrapped up. To be truly palatable, The _Hero and the Crown_ and _The Blue Sword_ require that obsession with horses shared by some adolescent girls. I grew up in the country, but never having gone ga-ga over animals in this way, it all got a bit cloying. But again, if you have a kid who's maybe 13 to 16 years old or so, they might like these two books.
Rating:
Summary: Books that make me weep and laugh simultaneously....
Review: This tops that list. If you haven't picked it up, I can't explain... Yes, it starts in a way that some would call slow... but I think it is more natural and lyric than the mass market offerings. DON'T walk into this book with the all too standard SF&F expectations of a hard, fast gotcha. This is not Holly Lisle/Terry Brooks/R.A. Salvatore mass market, pulp fiction.... Savor the words and the feelings... This is a book I have read and re-read and found new nuance every time. Rare indeed in SF&F.
Rating:
Summary: The Hero and the Crown
Review: Prequel to Robin Mckinley's earlier tale of Damar, The Blue Sword, The Hero and the Crown is about the legendary Lady Aerin, dragon-killer. Because Aerin's mother rumored be an evil witch who enspelled the king into marrying her, Aerin is not considered royalty. She is never accepted in her existance. But Aerin dreams of being a legend. She finds a recipe for kennet, a fire-proofing potion, and plans to use it to kill dragon. She also started the Hill way of riding, without reins or stirrups. Her dragon-killing leads her to defeat the great Black Dragon, who has existed thousands of years. But after defaeting the Dragon, Aerin starts dying. So she rides to the wizard Luthe, who not only heals her, but makes her immortal. He then sends her to kill Agsded. She knows that if she deafeat this powerful sorceror, who is her uncle, she will not only save Damar from war with the Northerners, but also accomplish her dream and become a living legend.
Rating:
Summary: Wonderful Prequel to The Blue Sword!!!
Review: Robin McKinley's books aren't exactly what I would recommend to anyone who is a big battle fanatic. But in my opinion, they are all the better because of the lack of battles! There isn't constant action from scene to scene, you get to know the characters instead, possibly even better than they know themselves. We find out about their history, there is a great insight into why they are who they are. And I love the horse aspect, I LOVE horses! I own several and have applied the method of riding that Aerin and Harry use to my own horses. The leg thing really does work. Both Damar books are for horse lovers and those who want to know the misfit characters inside and out. Anyone who has been ostracized, left out from the crowd, never felt like they quite fit in, these books are for them. It shows what a strong character people like that can have and how, in many ways, they are stronger than those who have not had the same hardships. After all, it was the misfits with the strongest "kelar" and the ones who defeated the gravest of enemies!
Aerin is a great character and I would not pass up the experience of following her through all her hardships, it just might teach you something if you do!
Rating:
Summary: It's good, really, really
Review: I just read the book again like two days ago. I read it before, but wanted to refresh my memory, and see if my past opinion changed. It didn't. I still found it good to read the second time.
I won't bother to tell the summary, because it's obviously written up there (Aerin, face an evil dragon, save Damar). The book itself has little touches of humor at the most unlikely moments which made me crack up because...in strange situations the strangest thoughts can pop up. This is a fantasy book, so it's all strange...yet, believable. This world that's been created...it seems possible, just like Pern or a school of wizardry hidden somewhere.
So enjoy it, because it's really really really good. :D
Rating: 
Summary: Inexplicable dissatisfaction on my part
Review: Something happened in the last half of the book that made me cease to enjoy it as much. Suddenly, it became vague, confusing and annoying. This phenomenom occured about after Aerin defeats Maur. Then, the story seemed to go downhill from there. Luthe? Who is he? Couldn't the story have gotten along fine without him?
Even with, I thought Luthe was some all-powerful wizard who would supply her with all the answers, but then he turned out to be not at all as noble or even as wise as anyone would have expected. Aerin was not told anything she needed to know, I thought. I learned more about Aerin's infuriatingly mysterious past from her uncle, the evil mage. He said more things that made sense. Luthe did not.
And then these two become attracted to each other? What?
And then she climbes up and falls down stairs for a hundred years? And there are cats and dogs with weird names in her army?
And did she have an exceptional reason for leaving the dragon's blood stone behind? Not really.
Aerin was also sick and dying for the latter portion of the book as well. That's nearly fifty pages of reading about her 'wry, self-debasing' doom comments and aches and pains.
Not the best read I'd ever had. The beginning was alright,but I was mistaken in thinking that we were going somewhere. The entire time I was reading the second half of the book, I got the impression that Mckinley had made all these mistakes in her storyline that she did not bother to mend, like I was reading a first draft. For instance, Luthe finds Aerin after her centuries of falling and realizes that he's forgotten to tell her something
that she needed to know about facing her uncle. There would not have been the faintest ripple in the plot if he had not forgotten, had instead told her when he was suppose to, or, not even have mentioned it at all. It was all these little things that irked me especially. The beginning WAS good; I was drawn in.
BUT, for some really spectacular fantasy, try Phillip Pullman's His Dark Materials trilogy.
Rating: 
Summary: Is this a book?
Review: Is this actually a book??? Th eHero and the Crown has to be one of the worst books I've ever read in my whole life. To make it simple don't read it unless you want to be bored to death!!!
| 
